• Acknowledgements


• List of figures


• Abbreviations


• Introduction


• Part I: Historical Narratives


• 1. Three Death-Descriptions: Tacitus, Suetonius, Cassius Dio


• 2. Neronian Exits: Writing Death into History


• Part II: Seneca the Author


• 3. The Man of Many Genres in his Death


• 4. Consolations on the Departure of the Consoler


• 5. A Closing Scene in the Theaters of Ethics, Tragedy, and History


• 6. End of a Series: Death in Epistolary Time


• Part III: Receptions


• 7. Tracing the Tradition


• Part IV: Themes


• 8. Forced Suicide and the Bodily Paths to Libertas


• 9. Passing into Memory: Seneca's Imago and its Reproduction


• 10. Places Suburban and Serious: The Ruins of Seneca and Scipio


• Epilogue


• Primary sources


• Bibliography

James Ker is Associate Professor of Classical Studies, the University of Pennsylvania.

The forced suicide of Seneca, former adviser to Nero, is one of the most tortured--and most revisited--death scenes from classical antiquity. After fruitlessly opening his veins and drinking hemlock, Seneca finally succumbed to death in a stifling steam bath, while his wife Paulina, who had attempted suicide as well, was bandaged up and revived by Nero's men. From the first century to the present day, writers and artists have retold this scene in order to rehearse and revise Seneca's image and writings, and to scrutinize the event of human death.